What to Tell Your Daughter, Little Sister, Friend About Rape in College

Sabrina Rubin Erdely's Rolling Stone article about a brutal gang rape at the University of Virginia is appalling, if unsurprising. The piece details the experiences of a woman named "Jackie," who says that as a freshman, she was horrifically raped by seven frat boys in a three-hour ordeal. Her friends, seeing her beaten and bloody, urged her not to report it because it would hurt her reputation, and the university's (lack of) response to the heinous crime—and other reports of gang rape at the same frat—was pathetic.

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UVA is just the latest in a long line of colleges that have failed rape survivors. Just this year, there have been big stories about how Columbia, Hobart and William Smith, Wesleyan, Florida State, and several other colleges and universities have all fallen down on their obligations to the victims of sexual assault. As the Florida State situation shows, the local police in college towns fail victims, too.

I also think about these stories as the mother of a daughter. My kid won't be off to college for another 16 years, but every time I read another awful story about a young woman's rape, and her additional victimization because of the way she's treated by authority figures who are supposed to help her, I wonder: What the hell am I going to tell my daughter when she goes off to college? What advice could I give her so that, in the crappy circumstance that she or one of her friends is sexually assaulted, she will know how to get justice and the help she or her friend needs?

Let me say up front that it's deeply fucked that anyone feels this must be part of the conversation when they are sending a young woman off to get an education. It is a woman's federal right to get an education without discrimination according to Title IX, and as the Department of Education explains, "discrimination on the basis of gender can include sexual harassment or sexual violence." I also hate the idea that when my daughter goes off into the world as an independent entity, she can't do so without fearing this kind of violence.

That said, I wanted to know what advice to give a teenager going off to college, a set of best practices to know just in case the worst happens. Andrea Pino, the co-founder of the non-profit End Rape on Campus, says the first thing a woman should know is her rights according to Title IX and the Clery Act. (Part of the reason punishing college rapists is such a sticky problem is that colleges and universities receiving federal funding must adjudicate sexual assault in their own systems, separately from regular police proceedings, which can make knowing your rights a more complicated scenario).

The first part of knowing your rights is to know that you don't have to go through the campus adjudication procedure to get resources, Pino said. "If a student reports an assault but doesn't want it investigated, it still has to go on a campus crime report, and they still have to be offered resources," she explains. You can still move dorms, change classes, and get a no-contact order against your alleged rapist without going through the adjudication process, which can be painful for survivors. If your college tells you that you have to go to the cops first before you get these resources, they are lying to you and violating your rights. As Pino notes, the campus justice system and the regular justice system are totally separate entities.

Pino suggests contacting your school's Title IX coordinator immediately, as does Katherine Redmond Brown, the founder of the National Coalition Against Violent Athletes (NCAVA). At some schools, it's hard to find approachable people, or people who are specifically trained to deal with rape victims, Pino notes. So a Title IX coordinator is a good bet if your campus doesn't have a workable system in place.

NCAVA's website has a page called "If You've Been Raped," which has a detailed set of instructions for recent victims. Brown suggests that in addition to reporting to the Title IX coordinator, victims should also contact an outside source of advice—like NCAVA or End Rape on Campus—to make sure that your report is being handled correctly by the school and by outside law enforcement. Brown also suggests victims consider going to a medical provider who is not associated with your university to get a rape examination, even if it means traveling many miles. If you believe you have been drugged, request a blood test immediately after the incident.

Laura H. Choate, a licensed professional counselor and an associate professor at Louisiana State University, says that psychologically, it's important for victims to seek assistance from a campus counselor and a school's specialized rape response team, if it exists, which can coordinate not just counseling, but also legal and medical assistance. "The main thing [a victim] needs at first will be support and stabilization," Choate writes in an e-mail. "She needs a safe person to listen her story. Counselors are uniquely trained to fulfill this role. She needs someone to listen fully, to validate her experience, and to believe her."

A counselor can also help the victim decide how to go forward with her case, Choate says. "She needs someone who can help her sort through her feelings about reporting the crime to campus police or other authorities. A counselor should provide her with all of her options and then help her weigh the consequences of each potential option." Survivors often feel a secondary victimization when they are interrogated by the police or campus authorities, Choate notes, and so it's important for them to have a backstop of emotional support in place.

At this point, it's still up to every individual survivor to do their research, Pino says. It's a depressing fact, but a true one. "Oftentimes people don't report, because they don't know who to talk to, or how the process goes. So many perps are graduating, but survivors are not," Pino explains. Jackie, the survivor in the Rolling Stone article, failed several classes the year she was raped. And she spent many days locked alone in her room, while her alleged rapists happily moved through their days.

It's paradoxical, but I'm glad that I'm better informed about what to tell my daughter about sexual assault on a college campus. I just hope she never has to use it.